The scenes coming out of China are shocking. Last night’s arrest and beating of a BBC journalist covering the protests against the Beijing Communist regime’s Zero Covid strategy have finally brought the plight of the Chinese into Britain’s political discourse. In light of this, Guido thought it worth going back a couple of years and remembering all the hardline Covid loons who spent much of the pandemic calling for the same Zero Covid strategy here in Britain.
In February 2021, 47 MPs signed an Early Day Motion (EDM) calling on the UK Government to “urgently to adopt a Zero Covid plan that seeks the maximum suppression of the virus”. The EDM cited New Zealand and Vietnam as specific examples. Vietnam eventually reported the world’s 13th-highest death toll…
Supporters of the EDM included the usual hard Left figures, such as Richard Burgon, Diane Abbott, Zarah Sultana, Claudia Webbe, John McDonnell, Apsana Begum and Rebecca Long-Bailey. It also saw a whopping number of SNP MPs back it, unsurprising given Nicola Sturgeon spent much of the first half of the pandemic giving lip service to a Zero Covid strategy, egged on by her top advisor Devi Sridhar.
It wasn’t just left-wing figures, of course. Jeremy Hunt lauded the strategy and recounted with barely suppressed admiration his sister’s experience of flying into Beijing during the pandemic. She was, he said, escorted from the airport by government officials and physically sealed in her home to remain under surveillance from Communist police.
Attacking Zero Covid strategies is not a luxury of those of us now blessed with hindsight. They were roundly attacked at the time – even discredited – and yet authoritarians still proselytised for them. This week’s scenes in China perhaps show why the hard Left loved the idea – it was less to do with virus control, more about controlling the citizenry…
Read the full list of EDM signatories here…
In December, Guido pointed out Richard Burgon had fallen victim to continually double counting when opining how to solve all of society’s problems. According to Richard, a top 10% wealth tax would raise £69 billion, which he would spend on, amongst other things: creating a ‘Social Emergency Fund’, ending the cost of living crisis, end people going cold, end hunger, cost future vaccine rollouts, pay for 150 new hospitals, eradicate homelessness, give nurses a “proper pay rise”, increase Universal Credit by £20 and invest in social care. Among other things…
It now seems it’s not just Guido poo-pooing this Burgon’s one-stop fiscal magic wand. Fellow lefty loon Howard Beckett, of Unite fame, yesterday tweeted that taxing the wealth of the UK’s billionaires at 3% would raise almost £60 billion – just £9 billion less than Burgon’s 10% wealth raid.
There are 171 billionaires in the UK with a total wealth of £560bl. Taxing their wealth over £10ml at just 3% would raise almost £60bl.
— Howard Beckett (@BeckettUnite) March 24, 2022
Stop the tax increases on workers. Tax the billionaires.
Aside from all this being based on the presumption that billionaires will just stay and fill in their HMRC returns, rather than sail off to Monaco aboard their yachts, that’s a huge difference. Guido won’t labour the discrepancy too much, though perhaps they should get Diane to have a look over their fag packet calculations…
Guido’s spotted that every time a political issue is raised, Richard Burgon pops up with the same, supposedly perfect solution: a “top 10% wealth tax” that would, according to Burgon, raise £69 billion. This may sound like a hefty sum, although given the near endless list of things Burgon wants it spent on, it may not stretch as far as he’d like…
Today, Burgon suggests it would be a great way to solve future vaccine schemes. Just two weeks ago, he said it could be used to build 150 hospitals. In September, he wrote an entire article about how it should be used to fund a new National Care Service. Of course, if he chose any of these options, he’d have to deny the NHS workers a pay rise he promised the wealth tax could fund back in July…
Based on a tweet search, Guido sums Burgon’s called to spend this exact sum of tax money on 19 political projects. As a wise man once said, Burgon’s useless, Burgon’s rubbish, Burgon doesn’t know what he’s doing…
Guido didn’t expect to have one of his stories from earlier this week provide the basis to a Richard Burgon question in the Commons, though this hasn’t been a normal week. During business questions today Burgon asked whether Rees-Mogg would also resign for joking about the No. 10 Christmas Party, during a speech to the IEA think-tank’s party filmed by Guido on Monday. Rees-Mogg declined Burgon’s career advice…
Rees-Mogg: "This party is not going to be investigated by the police in a year's time..." https://t.co/ozhRY5lOEg pic.twitter.com/OIanmcvpdU
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) December 7, 2021
Guido confesses feeling sorry for Jacob. While the clip was put out on Tuesday morning it wasn’t until ITV’s Tuesday evening Allegra Stratton leak that it went viral on the Twittersphere – it has racked up some 7 million views now. Clearly the Christmas party allegations ramped up in severity after the Stratton video, casting Rees-Mogg’s gag in a different light. As Jacob explained to Burgon, he was merely celebrating our new-found freedom to party…
*Video is still available for licencing via team@order-order.com. Our lawyers are watching.
To quote the man himself, Burgon’s useless, Burgon’s rubbish, Burgon doesn’t know what he’s doing…
The final dregs of Labour’s broadly disastrous (for the left) conference are still filtering through, with Guido discovering this fairly amusing clip of Richard Burgon parodying Neil Kinnock’s infamous 1985 Militant speech. The audience naturally lapped it up and for Burgon it was a decent performance. It does ring slightly hollow when, unlike Kinnock, Burgon and his merry band of deluded socialists are nowhere near the levers of Labour Party power. The punchline from Burgon did make Guido laugh…
